SEAT will propose Foxwoods bus route

Southeast Area Transit District will make a pitch to Foxwoods Resort Casino to create a paid bus line to replace free shuttles offered to the casino’s employees. But it faces an uphill climb.

JAMES MOSHER

Southeast Area Transit District will make a pitch to Foxwoods Resort Casino to create a paid bus line to replace free shuttles offered to the casino’s employees. But it faces an uphill climb.

Directors of SEAT, New London County’s regional bus company, voted Wednesday to send a letter to Foxwoods containing a “price” for the service. SEAT doesn’t offer a bus that goes directly from Norwich to Foxwoods now. The service would be geared to Norwich residents who work at Foxwoods.

“That’s a very large number that get on that Peter Pan bus,” Angelo Yeitz, a SEAT director from Norwich, said during Wednesday’s board meeting in Preston. “Let’s kick them a price. It’s worth investigating.”

Public bus line

Peter Pan, a Massachusetts-based company that is one of the Northeast’s largest bus companies, currently supplies some shuttle service to Foxwoods employees. Bill Satti, spokesman for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, which owns Foxwoods and MGM Grand at Foxwoods, said several outside companies, including Peter Pan, have been talking to Foxwoods about establishing a Route 2 public bus line to replace the shuttles. Peter Pan has declined to comment so far.

Foxwoods plans to terminate service on Feb. 29 amid declining use of the off-site shuttles, more requests from employees to park on casino property, and rising gas prices. It plans to be completely out of shuttling employees, Vice President of Hotel Operations Chris O’Connell said Tuesday. The casino doesn’t want to pay a “subsidy,” he said.

SEAT’s offer would constitute a subsidy, enabling inexpensive fares to be offered without making the route unprofitable for SEAT, directors said.

Contact

General Manager Ella Bowman said she’s attempted to contact Foxwoods executives without success.

“Foxwoods never got back to me,” she said Wednesday.

Satti promised the tribe would read any letter Bowman sent, adding that casino transportation executives are not avoiding Bowman.

A state Department of Transportation spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment on the likelihood of a private company meeting all regulatory requirements for a public bus line by the end of February.

SEAT serves 10 communities through its public bus lines, including Norwich, Ledyard and Griswold.